


liar's comfort

by screechfox



Series: a sharp-set symmetry [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Archivist Jon, Character Study, Comfort/Angst, Gen, Helen is a terrible influence but a surprisingly good friend, Holding Hands, Minor suicidal ideation, Post-Episode 146, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 10:36:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19990753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screechfox/pseuds/screechfox
Summary: Arguments are raging in the other office, loud enough that Jon can hear the voices but not the words. The sounds are a blur of anger in all different hues: Daisy, betrayal; Basira, disappointment; Melanie, fury. Jon thinks he can taste their fear of him, so sweet on his tongue despite the guilt he feels for relishing it.As the others argue about recent events, Jon and Helen have another conversation.





	liar's comfort

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry, i am never going to be over jon and helen's exchange in the latest episode and i had to write something exploring their dynamic and then it turned weirdly soft near the end

Arguments are raging in the other office, loud enough that Jon can hear the voices but not the words. The sounds are a blur of anger in all different hues: Daisy, betrayal; Basira, disappointment; Melanie, fury. Jon thinks he can taste their fear of him, so sweet on his tongue despite the guilt he feels for relishing it.

A door creaks open in the corner, and he watches as Helen leans casually against the frame. There’s something almost angelic to the serenity of her face — the classic ‘do not be afraid’ type of angelic, with too many of everything in all the wrong places. She smiles at him.

“Really, I think they should be admiring your restraint. Are you hungry, Archivist?”

“Ravenous,” Jon admits, quiet enough that he can pretend he didn’t. “I’m always— ravenous.”

“I can imagine,” Helen remarks, not without sympathy. “You  _ have _ been hard on yourself. Only five people in six months? It’s like you’re  _ trying _ to starve.”

“I— I don’t—” Jon cuts off his own denials with a frustrated sigh, sharpening his gaze into a disdainful glare. Helen doesn’t even blink at the force of his annoyance, but the expression makes him feel a little better. “What do you want?”

“To talk, that’s all.”

Jon scoffs, but his heart isn’t in it. He’s starting to feel as though  _ any _ company is good company, and he probably deserves to be left alone with only a monster for the pretense of friendship.

“I thought you said time was meant to be ‘hard to follow’.”

“Oh, it is. But I’ve been keeping track, for you.”

“How…  _ flattering.” _

“The things I do in the name of friendship.”

“If you say so.” Jon pinches the bridge of his nose, half-heartedly wishing he had the unnecessary weight of his glasses. They’d make a comforting barrier between him and the world, albeit an entirely ineffective one.

“... I suppose I wanted to offer my support, Archivist.”

“Support for what, exactly? Hill Top Road?”

Helen laughs at this, that familiar echoing thing. Jon will give her due credit: it isn’t as much of a high-pitched headache as Michael’s laughter was. Jon’s ears still rebel at the hearing of it. It layers in on itself, echoing and incomprehensible.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Jon mutters.

Helen laughs harder, clutching at her sides. The more things change, the more things stay the same; Jon can still elicit raucous laughter from beings that could easily kill him. When she falls silent, it’s with jarring abruptness. Somewhere in the kaleidoscope of her face, she is frowning at him, and there’s a concerned tinge to the shattered mirror-glass that makes up her expression.

(Jon doesn’t know how he won such honesty from the throat of delusion herself.)

“I meant what I said, Archivist. It  _ would _ be better if you embraced it.”

“For  _ me, _ you mean.” Jon doesn’t bother to disguise the bitterness in his tone.

“For your assistants too,” Helen insists, “even if they might not see it that way.”

Jon nods, because he’s thought about it and she’s probably right about that. The Archivist is no use to the Archives without causing fear and suffering. Jon has no way to protect the people he cares about — he can barely protect himself. Then he shakes his head, sighing.

“But it wouldn’t be better for  _ them. _ The people I’d be hurting, the ones who survived to make their statement.  _ Innocent _ people, more or less, who don’t deserve— me.”

Helen hums in contemplation, tilting her head.

“Do they  _ really _ matter that much to you, those ‘innocent people’?”

“Yes,” Jon says, too fast. Helen smiles, indulgent.

“You’re not a very good liar.”

“No, I— I suppose I’m not.” Jon finds himself laughing, a humourless thing that crawls its way out of his throat with the stale taste of ink and paper. “It’s not really my area, is it?”

Helen smiles wider, like they’re sharing a joke or a riddle: the Distortion and the Archivist stand in a room together. One tells truths and one tells lies, and both are acting against their own natures. Which one do you trust?

(Neither, of course. That should be blatantly obvious to anyone with sense.)

“They should matter,” Jon says, finally tearing his eyes from Helen. He stares at the tape still sitting on his desk, innocuous for something so damning. “Those people in my dreams, I  _ know _ they should matter to me. But I’m not sure they  _ ever _ have, not really.”

Jon laughs again, and this time it comes out embarrassingly close to a sob.

“I  _ wish _ they did. I wish I could look at a stranger and think of them as someone who  _ matters _ . Not as a statement waiting to be told; a nightmare waiting to be watched; a life waiting to be  _ ruined _ just so I can see it all tumble down.”

Helen is still and quiet for one long moment. Then, without speaking, she gently sets herself down in the chair opposite Jon. It’s like watching an optical illusion trying to fold its way into possibility. The chair creaks ominously.

“You were kind to Helen.”

“And what did that get her?” Jon asks, swallowing down another bitter laugh. “Corridors and nightmares and  _ you.” _

“It was a comfort, Archivist. It mattered. Without it, I doubt she would have survived long enough to become me.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t.”

“You don’t lack empathy for others, Archivist. If you did, I doubt you’d torture yourself so much.”

“... What happened to ‘it would be better if you embraced it’?”

Somewhere in the fractals of Helen’s form, she shrugs, indecision ad infinitum.

“I just don’t like seeing you unhappy, Archivist. I want to help.”

“By giving me confusing and self-contradictory advice?”

“Would you expect anything else?” A corner of Helen’s mouth quirks — curling in on itself far too much until Jon blinks, and it looks normal again.

“No. No, I suppose not.”

For a long, tense moment, there’s quiet. Through the wall, arguments are still audible, but the tone of them has changed. It’s about Basira, now, and the decision to go to Hill Top Road on the off chance that Annabelle Cane  _ might _ be there and  _ might _ have something to do with Jon.

Helen watches Jon, and he wonders whether she knows when he’s lying to himself.

“They aren’t controlling me, are they? The spiders, I mean.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not.” Helen shrugs again, with a certain playfulness to the gesture this time. “But not in this case, I think.”

“There’s no easy answer,” Jon mutters. “There never is.”

“You  _ wanted _ to do what you did, to feed. If you’re not going to embrace your nature, at least  _ accept _ it.”

“I’m a monster.” It comes out more easily than he’d expected, and he tests the phrase on his tongue again. “I am a monster.”

“We’re all monsters here.”

“... Really? The Cheshire Cat?”

“The classics are classics for a reason.”

“As long as you don’t start quoting the Jabberwocky.” It takes him a moment for Jon to realise that he said that. Christ, he’s  _ tired. _

Helen lets him stew in quiet thoughts for a minute or so, before she leans across the desk and takes one of his hands. Her sharp-edged fingers graze his skin, a bloodless promise of danger and affection all in one. She looks… solemn; the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of her being has stilled into diamond-clarity.

“You’re going to let your Basira charge off into Hill Top Road, when you  _ know _ she won’t find the solutions she’s looking for. Just so you can see what happens.”

“Yes,” Jon breathes, staring at where their hands are linked. Despite the shredded remains of his better judgement, he offers his other hand to the gentle threat of her grip. She takes it, tracing her nails over the twisted pattern of burns. He feels terrified and vulnerable and— human. She could kill him at any moment, and the Eye wouldn’t be able to save him. Maybe she even  _ would, _ if he had the guts to ask.

“Will that cure your hunger, Archivist?”

“I hope so,” Jon says, instead of the truth. Of course it won’t. Nothing but death will  _ ever _ get rid of the hunger that tears at his being. All he wants, deep down, is an eternity of knowing and watching and learning. He  _ needs _ it like he once needed to eat and drink, maybe even more. You can’t fight a need like that forever, no matter how hard you try.

Helen squeezes his hands in silent comfort. Her fingers cut him, but no worse than papercuts. There’s a relief to the stinging pain, and he leans into it. The look on Helen’s face is something like sadness.

“Like I said. They should be admiring your restraint.”

“... Maybe you’re right.”

On the other side of the wall, the arguments are waning, coming to their inevitable unhappy conclusions: Jon is a monster who can’t be trusted, and Basira, Melanie, and Daisy are all going to Hill Top Road.

Helen reaches up and caresses Jon’s cheek with her palm.

“Try not to die, Archivist. I won’t be able to give you a way out while you’re there.”

As if that settles the matter, Helen stands up and begins to step through her door.

“Helen?” She turns, tilting her head. “Thank you. For— for your support.”

“What are friends for, Archivist?”

Then Helen is gone, like she was never there.

The door creaks open — the normal door, dark wood and archival decorations.

“Are you coming with us?” Daisy asks, in the tone of someone who doesn’t know what answer she wants to hear. Her expression is unreadable but clearly unhappy.

Jon nods slowly, feeling as though he’s waking up from a deep sleep. He stares down at the droplets of blood welling up crimson against his skin. Of course he’s coming. He has to see what happens, doesn’t he?

“Just… give me a moment to get some plasters.”

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally just going to be helen being a bad influence but no it had to turn soft and maybe lowkey jon/helen. i may write a companion thing with jon and daisy (let them talk, jonny!) or i may not, we'll see
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at [screechfoxes](https://screechfoxes.tumblr.com)


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